To world-leading researcher Ajay Agrawal—named the engineer of a “Billion Dollar Breakout” byThe Globe and Mail—advances in Artificial Intelligence and machine learning mean profound opportunities for innovation and investment. As founder of U of T’s Creative Destruction Lab, and co-author of the eagerly awaited Prediction Machines (2018), Agrawal unpacks the full potential of A.I., without spin or jargon, for governments and companies alike.

“A.I. may transform your life. And Prediction Machines will transform your understanding of A.I. This is the best book yet on what may be the best technology that has come along.”

— Larry Summers, Harvard Professor and former US Treasury Secretary, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, and former president of Harvard University

Dr. Ajay Agrawal is the Peter Munk Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, and founder of U of T’s Creative Destruction Lab, which is home to the greatest concentration of A.I.-enabled companies in any program on Earth. Featured on the cover ofThe Globe and Mail’s “Report on Business,” the CDL is “paving the way for a more vibrant Canadian economy.” Report on Business Magazine has also named Agrawal to its “Power 50” list of the most influential Canadians to watch, calling him “a key contributor to Toronto’s emergence as a world-class technology ecosystem.” His first book, Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence, will arrive in May 2018 from Harvard Press. It’s a must-read, sweeping guide—and practical toolkit—for anyone seeking to leverage the disruptive, transformative power of A.I. in the coming decades.

Professor Agrawal and his co-authors also describe the “Simple Economics of Machine Intelligence” in the Harvard Business Review online, and were co-organizers of the research session on the Economics of Artificial Intelligence at the American Economics Association annual conference in Chicago. Agrawal is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA.

As co-founder of NextAI, a not-for-profit, Agrawal helps young entrepreneurs and technologists explore new commercial opportunities that are a direct result of advances in A.I. He is also a co-founder of “Machine Learning and the Market for Intelligence,” an annual conference on the business of artificial intelligence. In addition, he is a co-founder of Kindred, a company that seeks to build machines with human-like intelligence.

Agrawal was awarded Professor of the Year by MBA classes at the Rotman School seven times, the Martin-Lang Award for Excellence in Teaching, and most recently the Distinguished Scholarly Contribution Award in 2017, among several other honours. He conducts research on the economics of artificial intelligence, science policy, entrepreneurial finance, and the geography of innovation. He serves on the editorial boards of multiple management and economics journals, and holds a Ph.D. in Strategy and Economics and an M.Eng./MBA from the University of British Columbia. He served as a Visiting Scholar at MIT, London Business School, and Harvard University, as well as a Visiting Professor at Stanford.

“Prediction Machines is a must-read for business leaders, policymakers, economists, strategists, and anyone who wants to understand implications of AI on designing business strategies, decisions, and how AI will impact our society. Read this book and learn from the best!”

Ruslan Salakhutdinov, Carnegie Mellon Professor and Director of AI Research at Apple

Testimonials

“Prediction Machines achieves a feat as welcome as it is unique: a crisp, readable survey of where artificial intelligence is taking us separates hype from reality, while delivering a steady stream of fresh insights. The key is that the authors view AI’s life-changing developments through the lens of economics vs technology—and thus speak in a language top executives and policymakers will understand. Every leader needs to read this book.”

Dominic Barton, Global Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company

Testimonials

“This book makes artificial intelligence easier to understand by recasting it as a new cheap commodity—predictions. It’s a brilliant move. I found the book incredibly useful.”

Kevin Kelly, Founding Executive Editor of WIRED and Author of What Technology Wants and The Inevitable

Testimonials

“Prediction Machines is a pathbreaking book that focuses on what strategists and managers really need to know about the AI revolution. Taking a grounded, realistic perspective on the technology, the book uses principles of economics and strategy to understand how firms, industries, and management will be transformed by AI.”

Susan Athey, Stanford Professor and former Chief Economist at Microsoft

Testimonials

“The current AI revolution will likely result in abundance, but the process of getting there requires deliberation on tough topics that include increasing unemployment and income disparity. This book presents frameworks that allow decision makers to deeply understand the forces at play.”

Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures and Founding CEO of Sun Microsystems

Testimonials

“This is the first book to explain the economics of artificial intelligence. It’s a must-read for every business person interested in this technology. I encounter so many people who feel excited but overwhelmed by AI. This book will ground those feeling lost by giving them a practical framework.”

Shivon Zilis, OpenAI Director and Partner at Bloomberg Beta

Testimonials

“What does AI mean for my business? Read this book to find out”

Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google

Testimonials

“AI’s the most transformative technology of our era. Agrawal, Gans, and Goldfarb not only understand its essence, but also deliver deep insights into its economic implications and intrinsic trade-offs. If you want to clear the fog of AI hype and see clearly the core of AI’s challenges and opportunities for society, your first step should be to read this book.”

Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT Professor and Author of The Second Machine Age and Machine Platform Crowd

Speech Topics

Artificial intelligence has been with us for decades. But today’s machines are gaining the ability to learn from data and make sophisticated predictions—more cheaply, and more accurately, than human beings. Like the advent of the Internet and the dot-com explosion, machine learning is set to affect foundational changes to our lives (think driverless cars—but that’s just the beginning). From navigation to the Internet of Things, manufacturing to agriculture, health care to the robotic workers set to replace even top-level positions, deep learning will open as many doors as it will close. And to understand these shifts, experts turn to Ajay Agrawal. A leading authority in A.I., the co-author of the hotly anticipated Prediction Machines—and, as a business speaker, a great explainer of complex economic forces—he translates the sweeping power of machines and breaks down why it all matters. How can we take advantage of the growing market for A.I.? How can we allocate capital and investments today to best prepare for tomorrow? How do we prepare for the disruptions—to long-standing industries, to millions of jobs, and to age-old notions about work, employment, and leisure—that will result? No matter who you are or where you work—a company, an investor, a university or government—Agrawal will help you adapt, and thrive, throughout this economy-wide transformation.

Economics

Gaining an A.I. EdgeBecoming a Global Leader in Machine Learning

To Rotman professor, Creative Destruction Lab founder, and machine learning speaker Ajay Agrawal, many western nations have a problem with productivity. We’re educated—and we’ve got plenty of innovative ideas—but problems with scale and commercialization leave us underperforming. However, countries now have a new opportunity to compete globally—if we decide to take a lead in the realm of artificial intelligence and machine learning. In this keynote, Agrawal outlines the ways businesses, funding agencies, universities, and other institutions can pioneer research into A.I. and become global leaders. In other words, when inventors, scientists, programmers, and entrepreneurs are working at the very frontiers of deep and reinforcement learning, there are nearly limitless applications for business. If you invest now, and secure your global presence, you can transform your productivity and win on a world stage. Drawing on his work with the Creative Destruction Lab and the NextAI, Agrawal outlines how investors and business leaders can seize these new opportunities, capitalize on foresight, and reap the benefits of an early engagement with the next great shift in economics.